Last year we borrowed an idea from Jon Acuff and will be sharing the Top 12 Blog Posts of the Year with you again over the next 12 blogging days. The order is based on the number of page views each post received, so be sure to check them out in case you missed any during the year.

We’ll be using the down time to relax, come up with new blog posts and ideas and to watch Christmas movies! New content will return on January 7th 2013.

Last year on Black Friday we encouraged you to help your youth consume less. Many young people want so much at Christmas time – new phones, new clothes, new shoes/boots, new tablets, new parents… OK that last one might be all year round and can’t really be helped, but you get the idea.

However, there are also a large number of young people around the world who won’t get anything for Christmas – it will be like any other day. Most youth want to matter and make a difference, so this time of year is a great opportunity to help bridge these two realities for youth.

This week’s session plan idea can work as one long session or as a few different sessions over the coming weeks leading up to Christmas. Here are 3 activities that will help encourage your young people to want less stuff, be grateful for what they have and to share with others.

Show Christmas Movies

There are a few great Christmas films out there beyond just ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’. Don’t be afraid to tap into their inner-child – we showed A Charlie Brown Christmas to our youth one year and it was a big hit.

3. Christian Christmas Scavenger Hunt – If you’re a church youth group, you may prefer to focus on the Christian aspect of Christmas. This activity has clues based on the Christmas story, along with a couple of additional items and tasks for players to complete.

Organizing a Christmas card fundraiser can be a creative, fun and (somewhat) easy way to fundraise for your youth group. Here are 3 ways you could do this:

Reselling

Stores will often have special deals on cards leading up to Christmas, like Buy One Get One Free on boxes. Take advantage of this by stocking up on packs of these cards, then reselling at regular price to supporters.

As you’re running a fundraiser, you may even be able to get away with charging a slightly higher price. For example, if there’s a BOGOF offer where you get two packs of Christmas cards for a total of $5, you could try reselling these for $7.50 each. This would result in a profit of $10 for every two packs you then sell – not too shabby if you can get many parents and other adults supporting the fundraiser.

Self-Designing

If you have some creative young people in your youth group, get them to design some Christmas cards. These can then be produced using a site like Zazzle.

The good thing about this second option is that unlike reselling cards, you don’t have to spend anything in advance to plan this Christmas card fundraiser. Instead, you can set up a store on Zazzle and provide links for people to order directly from there. You can also register to become an affiliate, meaning you’ll also earn an additional 15% of the value of each order, greatly increasing the amount of money you raise.

Photoing

A third option is to produce personalized Christmas cards as a fundraiser. With this option, you organize a photo session where families come and get their photo taken. You then take their orders for the amount, size and design of the Christmas cards they’d like.

The cards can then be easily produced via sites like Snapfish and Shutterfly. You can usually get discounts for bulk ordering as well as free shipping, so this will help maximize the amount that you fundraise.

Tips

Try to promote your fundraiser as widely as possible. This could be done by producing flyers to send home with your young people and seeing if local businesses are willing to carry them

If your youth group is part of a church, announce the fundraising effort during a church service – this will help ensure that you reach as many members of the congregation as possible, not just those who have children

When planning this kind of fundraiser, it’s best to get it organized – and promoted – as early as possible. Otherwise, people who would have supported you may have already bought all their Christmas cards

The idea is to sell pre-prepared Christmas stockings to raise money. Here are some tips on how to do this:

Demographics

First of all, identify what age range the Christmas stockings will need to be aimed at. For example, if you’re fundraising for a church youth group, you should have quite a good idea of the age range of young people in the church. With a local community youth group, your fundraiser would probably be aimed at the ages of the young people in that community.

Try to identify whether there will be an equal number of boys and girls you’d be buying for – if you work with girl scouts, you may choose to focus your efforts more on stockings for girls (although not necessarily).

This is important to bear in mind, as it will affect what types of stocking stuffers you buy.

Budget

Decide how much you want to spend on stockings and the contents. Don’t just guess how much it will cost as this can result in underestimating the cost of items, resulting in you not actually raising money after all.

Make a list of items you want to include, then research how much they all cost – including the cost of stockings. Total this up and then divide by the number of stockings you’ll be able to make – this will give the net cost.

Next, you’ll need to work out how much extra you want to charge in order to fundraise. For example, it may cost $15 to put together each stocking. You may then choose to charge $20 or $25, thereby making a profit of $5-$10 on each one.

It might be worth putting together one stocking first before you buy everything in bulk. This will give you a better idea as to whether the stockings are too empty, too full or just right, as this too will affect how much you budget for.

Stockings

As you’ll be putting together many pre-prepared Christmas stockings, you could probably save quite a lot of money by buying these in bulk from a wholesaler or possibly somewhere like Walmart.

Alternatively, you could get some decent enough stockings from a dollar store.

Stocking Stuffers

Like we mentioned in the demographics section, the stocking stuffers that you buy will be affected by the age range that you’re buying for. It’s therefore hard to advise what you should fill the stockings with, but here are a few suggestions:

Candy

Snacks

Toy cars

Bouncy balls

Bubbles

Travel-sized games

Stuff from somewhere like Claire’s Accessories

Small stuffed animals / plush toys

Crayons

Glitter make-up

Again, these are things that you might be able to save money on by buying in bulk or from a dollar store.

If possible, try to get at least one large item per stocking so long as they’re not too expensive. Having items sticking out the top of the stocking will make it look far more impressive when trying to sell them.

Promotion

Try to make your youth group fundraiser as widely known as possible in order to maximize the amount you raise. Produce some flyers and ask local businesses if they’d be willing to carry them.

If your youth group is part of a church, announce the fundraiser during a church service so that you can reach the entire congregation. Put up a sign on a community noticeboard or have your young people put flyers in letterboxes in their neighborhood.

When promoting, be specific as to what you’re fundraising for. People are far more likely to support something where you say “We’re fundraising to build a basketball court for the local community” rather than “We’re fundraising for our youth group”. This gives people something tangible that they can support.

Selling / Ordering

There are a couple of options as to how you can sell the pre-packaged Christmas stockings. One would be to find a location that has high foot traffic in the run-up to Christmas (e.g. outside a grocery store or mall). You’ll most likely need a permit or some kind of permission in order to do this, so contact the store well in advance to arrange this.

If the store is worried that this could impact on their own sales of stocking-related items, discuss with them the possibility of buying the items from their store in order to put the stockings together. That way they don’t miss out on sales, while you get a prime location spot for selling.

Alternatively, you could have people place orders for the stockings in advance, rather than buying them on the day. This can be beneficial as it’ll give you a good idea of how many stockings and stocking stuffers you’ll need, thereby helping you to budget correctly. You’ll also know whether you should be buying items suitable for boys, girls, or both.

Otherwise, you could do both options to maximize the number of stockings you sell for your fundraiser.

Buy One, Give One

Perhaps your youth group doesn’t need a fundraiser for themselves, but still wants to do something for the local community this Christmas.

If that’s the case, you could price this so that when people buy a stocking, a second stocking is given away. These second stockings could be given to children’s hospitals, homeless shelters, low-income housing developments or anywhere else there could be young people who wouldn’t receive a Christmas stocking otherwise.

Alternatively, these could be sent overseas if your youth group supports a charity elsewhere. Make sure you factor in the cost of shipping, unless there’s a missions trip or something similar planned whereby people could take the stockings with them.

All you’d need to do is charge double for a stocking, so if each stocking and its contents cost $12.50, you’d charge $25 in order to produce the second stocking to give away.

Youth Participation

This fundraiser is perfect for getting your young people to take a lead through youth participation. They can:

Help research the demographics

Come up with stocking stuffer ideas

Go with you to buy everything

Promote the fundraiser

Put the stockings together

Sell the stockings

Question: What other ideas do you have for how to organize a Christmas stocking youth group fundraiser? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.